


Before You Called Me Baby

by Sapphires_and_Gold



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Braime - Freeform, F/M, Fictober, Fictober 2020, Riverlands Roadtrip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26739280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphires_and_Gold/pseuds/Sapphires_and_Gold
Summary: Welcome to my Fictober 2020 series! The title of this collection is taken (just like last year) from a Caitlyn Smith song. I'm PLANNING on this all being fragments of one story. It will (hopefully) not be so off the rails as last year, but if you're new here and you're looking for off the rails, check out Fictober 2019's "Put Me Back Together."
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	1. "No, come back"

Shackles did not suit him.

His wrists were raw from months of northern imprisonment. And now the wench insisted on tugging the end of the leash while she lumbered ahead of him deeper into the forest. She refused to look at him much, except to ascertain that he was still dragging his feet behind her, but that she did more often and more efficiently by shortening the lead and pulling as she did now. If it were anyone else at the other end of the rope, he was sure the torture would come with a secret smirk at his expense; but not the wench.

She'd had an ill humor about her from the moment he'd laid eyes on her, sword in hand, ready to strike him down at her lady's command. He had never seen such a creature. When she'd walked away into the darkness he had grieved the shortness of their acquaintance. "No, come back" he'd thought, "this is the most interesting thing that's happened to me in a year. Come back and give me that sword." He could not have fathomed then how his fortune would have changed within a few hours, and placed him in her hands. 

It hadn't been until the next morning when she was barking orders at him in the daylight, removed from the camp, that he saw that she was not only impressibly taller than most men, as he had estimated from his former position in the dirt, but she was taller than himself. The beast had not taken kindly to his conversation on the subject, but he pursued it, knowing full well that if he got under that dull armor she might misstep; she might leave herself open for him to make his move against her.

He doubted that she would lose all her sense and outright execute him, for she seemed loyal to her mission - to get him to the capital in exchange for the lady's daughters - but if she did, at least he wouldn't have to look at the back of her ugly head anymore. 


	2. "That's the easy part"

They had walked through most of the night, stopping only when the wench sensed other specters on the trail, and then only shortly before diverting along another, darker path. At sunrise, she wrapped the lead around him and unceremoniously shoved him under a hedgerow before securing the other end to herself and pinning him against the trunk with her weight.

She had never yet removed any of her armor in his sight, but in spite of any earlier misapprehensions, there was no doubting the beast was indeed a woman. It was not for any betrayal of his dignity or hers that he'd assured himself of this, yet when he laid there in the heat of the day, pushing everything away, there was her scent.

Not like any other woman he'd met, truly, and not like Cersei. She did not smell of perfume or, gods be good, a recent bath. Her scent was neither noxiously floral or purposely seductive, nor was it repulsive. Neither was it the scent that matched any of the men he'd encamped with, but still more feminine than all the artifice. But unlike other women, she found it terribly easy to ignore his attempts to engage her. She was in a state of constant alert, and never let him even look in the wrong direction.

He despaired that he might never gain her confidence enough to trip her up. If only he could. "That's the easy part," he thought, "she may be tall and strong enough to drag me through the woods, but she's hulking and inexperienced. I'll always be quicker, a step ahead of her in that armor if given the chance. If only my hands were free, I could remove this obstacle before she even lurched awake and escort myself back to my sister."

A voice in the back of his mind, which sounded alarmingly like the sardonic unamused growl of his captor, wondered "but what would you do then? Hide in the brush alone until you've made it south enough to use your name as currency? Risk getting recaptured and fed to the wolves?" No, if anything he had an unwilling protector in his captor; the second set of senses would be useful in these parts.

He had waited gods knew how long, sitting in the mud with only the certainty of being eventually slaughtered. Now that he had hope, he could bide his time. 


	3. "You did this?"

When night fell, he awoke to find her gone, and himself no less shackled. 

Footsteps approached at his back, unmistakably her heavy step, he thought, but he stilled anyway, not feeling quite certain enough. But then she was tugging on the rope again, and he sighed. He rolled over to see her on her knees in the dirt, unrolling a small canvas bundle. 

She drew the dagger from her hip and pierced something at the center of the bundle, and then held it firmly toward him, the tip of the dagger inches from the tip of his nose. 

The smell of roasted meat invaded his senses, and his mouth began to water in a way that betrayed his hunger. He almost imagined he could feel the heat of it on his skin. He shifted himself up to sit so that he could extend his hands up and pick the meat from her blade, and nearly dropped it when he found that the heat was real; the morsel was still steaming.

He watched as she pulled the dagger back and pierced the bundle again, bringing another piece to her own teeth, and tearing into it. 

He took a bite, the flavor exploding on his tongue, and he almost moaned. It was bland but fresh and well-cooked, and the best thing he had tasted in a year. "Bit risky," he taunted between bites, "leaving me alone like that."

She sneered without looking at him. "You wouldn't have gotten far, Kingslayer."

"Still," he ventured, "stopping in somewhere and risking someone would see you? News travels fast in these little villages, wench."

She shrugged. "No village." She gestured to the bundle. "It hopped too close and was too slow when I gave chase." She adjusted her grip on the dagger, waving it casually in his direction before stabbing the bundle again; a warning, he thought. "I went down the hill to cook it before dusk."

He felt his mouth fall open, and she looked at the remaining meat in his hand for a moment, as if to say "eat it, or I will." 

"You did this?"

She grunted her assent and kept chewing. He brought his fully to his lips and devoured it. If a rabbit was too slow for the wench's dagger, what, or who else would be? He spit out some gristle and chewed the rest, feeling the warm sinew settle satisfyingly into his belly. 

She held out the tip of the dagger again, a final portion dangling from it, and he took it without another question. Yes, perhaps he had underestimated her.


	4. "That didn't stop you before."

"They're so blue," he thought, "like where the shallow shelf of the ocean floor ends and gives way to an underwater cliff, exposing the depths."

Her fingers were tight at his collar, choking him, his feet dangling over the fallen leaves, her angry breath buffeting on his skin, and those deep blue pools suddenly flying away from him as his body hit the ground, thrown three meters from her feet.

She grabbed the end of the lead and tugged in the same direction they'd been going before he had driven her to such violence with his taunts.

He gained his knees but felt the left one twinge for the second day in the row. She was younger than he, and being in Renly's camp for a year would have been significantly more comfortable than his cell. Her stamina was exhausting. But he would not give her the satisfaction of seeing him as weak. 

"Hold," he called from the forest floor, "there's a stone in my shoe."

"That didn't stop you before."

"Do you really want me limping all the way to King's Landing?" he quipped. "Or worse, it could get infected, and then you'd have to carry me."

The beast rolled _those_ eyes and then gathered the rope around her hand one more time, adding to the tension. He felt a sweat break at the back of his neck. Eyes on her, he scooted forward on his twinging knee to give himself enough slack to carry out his pantomime, finally turning his eyes down and making a show of turning his shoe upside down noisily. 

And as he regained his feet and stepped toward her, his knee creaking slightly, he considered that perhaps being carried, even by her, might not be so bad. 


	5. "Unacceptable, try again."

He was bored. And hungry. 

He considered antagonizing her again, just to entertain himself. 

But he'd lost the previous day's dinner by doing just that.

She'd returned again just after he woke, steaming nondescript rodent meat in hand. Again, she'd held a piece out to him. He had eyed it, not convinced of its edibleness, and set his mouth in a smirk. "Unacceptable," he'd said, "try again."

Without a thought, and nearly without a huff, she had withdrawn the blade, shrugged, and eaten his portion herself. "You don't have to eat," she'd retorted between bites, "just walk."

"You'd have me starve?" he'd balked. 

For perhaps the first time, she had examined him head to toe and then gone back to her meal. "You've still got enough on your bones. You'll be fine. Maybe you'll be more appreciative tomorrow."

He'd scoffed, but she'd shown no mercy. 

Now his stomach was aching. He would be useless on their next leg if he didn't eat something. And they had to make progress out of the Riverlands.

He felt her scoot away to go hunting. He must have shifted, alerting her to his wakefulness, for she leaned in menacingly and whispered "Stay."

"I'm hardly your biggest concern, wench," he whispered back, "not traveling in the day is slowing us down. The wolves must be on our trail by now."

She stood and seemed to sniff the air. "Not yet." And she walked off. 

He wished he could be as certain as she. The wench wasn't nearly as entertaining as the jeers of northerners, but being shackled to a tree was certainly better than hanging from one. 


	6. "That was impressive."

She was magnificent.

They had stopped on the road just before dawn, their legs and feet aching, because the wench had spotted the girls, corpses dangling over the road, strung up by northmen in retribution for their entertainment of his father's troops. 

The wench had secured him to a nearby tree, not that he'd had any intention of wandering far just now, sore as he felt. And before she could take another step, wolves were on the path, likely some of the same who had committed these women to the sky. 

The wench had tried and failed to divert their attention. And then one had recognized him. And before he could speak again, she was shoving him against the tree and taking all three of them alone. He tried to convince her to free him, for at this moment they were on the same side, and he would have aided her. He might possibly have then slit her throat and moved on... but no, she took them on. 

He needn't have worried about her, not that he had of course. Naturally, his concern had been what they might do to him once they'd killed her. No, he needn't have worried. All of them were dispatched in the work of a moment more magnificent than anything he had seen at any tourney, in any melee, in his life. 

Not only was she strong, as he knew, and quick, as he'd learnt; she was smart. She moved well, almost as well as himself. If only she could learn not to lead each jab, slice, and parry with those carnal grunts, she might be a brilliant swordswoman. He'd keep that to himself, of course, and use it later if need be. 'Twould be a shame for so strong a fighter to go down, but then she was still between him and home. 

She wiped her sword down and glanced in his direction. 

"That was impressive," he offered, absent of irony.

She neither sneered nor smiled, and put her sword away. "Stay." And then she went about the business which the northerners had both assigned and interrupted. 


	7. "Yes, I did, what about it?"

A day later, and he was still astounded by what he'd seen.

"Those were Stark men, you know," he'd said after heaving himself under the brush unbidden, and feeling her settle, her back to his. "You killed Stark bannermen."

"Yes, I did," she said, her tone clipped, "what about it?"

"Well, what would your lady say about that?"

She seemed to shrug. "Doesn't matter. They did wrong, regardless of their allegiance, and they meant to kill us."

He thought a moment, then started back in, almost teasing, "So do you consider defending my life... right, then?"

She answered quickly: "I'm doing my duty, and that is all."

He left her alone after that, attempting sleep while her thoughts shouted into the darkness around them, his words turning over in her mind. 


	8. "I'm not doing that again

The sound of the wench's grunts woke him up. 

He had fallen asleep, rocked into something sound by the boat's movements. 

The sun was still below the horizon, the sky a saturated pre-dawn blue, almost the color of the eyes he couldn't currently focus on. She was rowing hard, trying to reach the bank before it got any brighter. Her arms were strong, her thighs seemed even stronger. 

He shook his head, slapping himself internally. Where had that thought come from? The fog of sleep clearly still affected him. 

He grunted trying to sit up. 

"Stay. Down." she gritted. 

"Are we close to shore? Your prisoner has to take a piss."

"Soon enough," she rowed in longer strides now. 

"How far have we gone?"

"Far enough for one night."

"Why can't you ever give me a str--" He was cut off by the jolt of the boat grounding itself on the shore. The wench looked about and slowly sat up higher in her seat. She threw one of those strong thighs over the side and slipped into the water. 

The world was silent, the water barely lapping at the boat. The eastern sky began to pale like the last vestiges of a dream fading away. A lone carrion bird making tighter and tighter circles over his head.

"Wench?" he whispered, then louder, "wench?!" Then beginning to sit up, "We--" A hand came down hard over his mouth and shoved him back down into the belly of the boat. Her eyes almost glowed over the side, and then were gone with her hand. 

He felt the ground sliding beneath him as she pushed the vessel up onto the bank, and finally stopped. She reappeared and, grabbing his manacles, pulled him upright. "Get out."

He frowned. "Last time you dragged me and all but carried me."

"I'm not doing that again. Get out now, or I'll chain you to the boat and let the birds have you."

He got up stiffly and set foot on solid ground without another word. 


	9. "Will you look at this?"

On the next night, they trudged deeper into the woods without a meal, the rabbits on this side of the river apparently more elusive than their northern cousins. "Of course," he thought, "the further from the north you get, even the animals are smarter."

As the moon reached its peak, she halted him, peering behind some brush, then tugging almost gently. In the clearing were the remains of a small camp - maybe thirty men in all. The grass was trampled and there were char circles marking each fire - seven in all. 

"Will you look at this?" he said without irony, "civilization."

She knelt down, keeping him in her periphery, and touched one of the char circles carefully. "They've been gone at least a day, but I'm not sure if it was much longer..." she trailed off, looking into the distance, eyes on the ground. "They went back towards the road there," she said, pointing. 

He followed her hand, unable to spy any kind of road; either she could see something he couldn't, or she was trying to bait him. But he was in agreement with her assessment - the party had entered and exited via the same break in the trees and no other. "Perhaps we'd best stay back. Give them a wide berth. Wouldn't want to disturb the wrong kind of people."

She nodded absently, her eyes seemed unable to leave the trail the strangers had left behind as if expecting them to come back and happen upon her and her quarry. 

There was a change in the air. He could feel his freedom getting closer, riding on the wave of her transparent nervousness. 


	10. "All I ever wanted"

She was finally able to secure not one, but two unlucky rabbits. One she broke down and cooked, the other she skinned, wrapped, and tucked away for the following night. She had some sense, he would give her that. 

For the first time in their strange acquaintance, she built the fire in his presence, acknowledging that they were better situated here than closer to the road or the river. He watched her fail at skinning the second rabbit properly, tearing one of its hindquarters in the process. 

"Did your father teach you to mangle rodents like that, or did you learn that from one of Renly's... guards?"

She glared at him. "No one taught me."

"No wonder," he quipped. 

She bit her tongue, holding back an angry retort.

"And what about fighting?" he continued pleasantly, "the way you took out those men," he said, carefully aiming to hit just below praise, "did you teach yourself that as well?"

She busied her hands with her bundle, thinking. "That I learned at home. Not from my father, though."

"And what of you leaving your little island and going off to fight that ninny's war for him? And losing - I might add. Does your father approve of that?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, "Does your father approve of all your choices, Kingslayer?" 

He didn't respond. 

"It's all I ever wanted," she spat "to be a knight. It was an honor to be in the Rainbow Guard. Not that you would know anything about honor." She turned her attention angrily to the fire, turning the meat over the meager flame.

He watched the firelight draw out the palest filaments in her hair, and muttered unheard over the crackling of the fire, "We are more alike than you know, wench."


	11. "I told you so"

They slept through the day, any sounds from the nearby road muffled by the beasts of the forest. 

She rose later than she would have liked, but he was still asleep, or feigning it; she couldn't always tell. She nudged him firmly with the toe of her boot and bade him get up. 

He complained, as usual, making a show of his relief behind the nearest tree, and then paused, confused, irritated. "What have I done now?"

"Done?"

"Am I not eating again?"

She looked skyward, exasperated, "Have to get moving. You can eat tomorrow."

He groaned. She tugged the rope. And they walked. 

"I don't see why I couldn't eat first," he said as they gained the dark dusty road.

"The fire would have called attention to us in the dark," she responded matter-of-factly. "We can't risk that."

"Oh, it's we now?" he drawled. 

She ignored him. 

Hours later she could all-but hear his feet dragging ahead of her.

"When the little prince in the North had me chained up," he said, a day without food was nothing, because that's just what I was doing. It took no energy whatsoever to lie there and await my demise. But all this walking--"

"You'll be fine," she insisted, gesturing for him to keep moving. 

"And what about you, wench," he said, an edge to his voice betraying his frustration beneath his usual cool mocking demeanor and he turned around to look at her, gingerly stepping backward as he did, "Mark my words, you'll be tired enough too soon. You can't survive on tormenting me with your presence alone. We're going to slow down, and then you'll get sloppy," his eyes didn't leave hers as he said this, "and then we'll get caught and my head will be saying I told you so from the end of a northern spear."

Her eyes bore into him. "Perhaps that's what you deserve."

She pushed him ahead of her, giving away no fear or hesitation on her part, for now. 


	12. "Watch me"

She was tired, not that she would admit it. But, as he predicted, she then got sloppy.

Near dawn, too close to dawn, she was leading him down a final bend in the roadside, searching out the best place to pause their journey, the lead short, when she misstepped at the sound of a wagon approaching from the south, and she tripped noisily over debris. She caught herself and immediately shot her head up toward the sound, looking down the road. She knew her captive to be behind her, but at that moment he seemed to close as if he had rushed behind her - to hide, to catch her, to kill her, maybe, she did not know. But there, a hundred paces or more down the lane was a small man driving his cart into the brightening blue day, an aged mule pulling him and his goods along the road which transected their path. 

He saw them. 

There was no question. He had nodded in their direction as he crossed and carried on his way. 

"You should kill him." The whisper sounded in her ear, so close and so intimately that had it not been for the buffer of his breath against her skin, she might have thought she was imagining it. 

"No. We keep moving."

"He saw us," he nearly growled.

She dismissed him, stepping away from the road, "We're nothing to him. He's going about his business. But just in case, we cannot stay here - we keep moving. If we get far enough away, it won't matter - he won't be able to send someone after us."

She tugged the lead, pulling him behind her between the trees. She could feel a heightened sense of panic from him, bouncing off of her own fear, but she was right. She had to be.

She navigated west toward the riverbank and, spying a bridge, pulled him toward it. 

The day was coming quickly now. As they edged toward the bridge he reprised his complaint. "We can't cross that thing now," he said, "it's already daylight, we'll be seen."

She set her mouth. "Watch me."

She looked back toward the woods at their back, and then across the bridge into the dark recesses of the western bank. Birds sounded, but nothing else. She stepped onto the stone, then another step, and then another, keeping her body low, when suddenly she felt a weight shift from her right side paired with the familiar song of a blade being drawn. She spun around, just in time to see her captive free himself, slicing through the rope with the spare sword, and circling away from her, barely appearing to take a defensive stance.

"I never understood," he mocked, tossing the blade between his still-bound hands, toying with the fee of it, "why some knights felt the need to carry two swords."

She sneered and drew her own weapon from the opposite hip, stepping toward him, weapon raised. 

He finally looked at her, eyes sparkling, smirking.

"Give me the sword, Kingslayer."

"Oh, I will."


	13. "I missed this"

He drove at her, the sword alive in his hands.

She jumped back, parrying, but he followed, pressing the attack. No sooner did she turn one cut than the next was upon her. The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again.

His blood was singing. He never felt so alive as when he was fighting a worthy opponent, and he certainly knew her to be that. He hadn't intended to take her like this - not with a weapon in hand, nor out in the open - but now that the weight of the sword was in his hand, he could almost smell victory. His chains forced him to use a two-handed grip on a shortsword, but what did it matter? It was long enough to write her end and get him home a free man. 

He rained down steel upon her, stepping, striking, hacking, faster, faster, faster... until breathless, he stepped back and let the point of the sword fall to the ground giving her respite. "I missed this."

She took a slow deep breath, her eyes watching him warily, plotting her next move with enviable calmness. "I wouldn't hurt you, Kingslayer."

"As if you could." He flew at her again, and the dance went on. He could not have said how long he pressed the attack; time slept when swords woke, and she didn't lose a beat. She drove him against the low wall, almost knocking the weapon from him, but he recovered quickly, spinning away from her. A worthy opponent indeed. He could do this with her forever.

"Not bad at all," he said, pausing and circling to catch his breath."

"For a wench?" she spat.

He laughed a ragged, breathless laugh, enjoying himself for the first time in a very long time. In truth, she was probably as good as all those knights she'd grown up worshipping, and stronger. "Come on, come on, my sweetling, the music's still playing. Might I have this dance, my lady?"

She came at him, and suddenly he was struggling to keep steel from skin. She forced him back down the path, shouting, "Yield! Throw down the sword!"

He dove, his point biting her upper thigh, and unbothered, she knocked him into the ground, his knee slamming painfully into stone. He drove his shoulder into her legs, bringing her down on top of him.

Weapons lost, they rolled back down the incline, along the bank, kicking and punching and grunting until they were in the shallows and finally she was sitting astride him, limbs splashing, cold river water saturating their garments until there was only warmth where they connected.

She pinned his wrists hard with one hand and, with the other, shoved his head into the river shouting "Yield!" She yanked him up by his chains and he spit water in her face in return. She dunked him again, and back up. "Yield, or I'll drown you." 

"And break your oath?" he snarled. "Like me?"

She let him go, and he went down with a splash. 

And the woods rang out with coarse laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of this chapter's text is taken directly from chapter 21 of ASOS because ain't no way I was going to let D&D ruin it again.


End file.
